Chapter 11 - Blood on the Marble|
We tumbled into the fortified service elevator. Cole slapped the biometric scanner, and the steel doors slid shut just as another hail of bullets pinged harmlessly off the reinforced exterior.
The elevator plunged three levels beneath the estate, opening directly into the subterranean concrete bunker. Mrs. Gable was huddled in the corner, clutching a medical kit, her eyes wide with terror.
"Boss!" Mrs. Gable cried, rushing forward as Nathan collapsed heavily onto a metal examination table.
Nathan’s breath was shallow and ragged. The bullet had torn through the meat of his right shoulder, narrowly missing the subclavian artery, but blood was pumping out at a terrifying rate.
"Cole... call our harbor units," Nathan ordered, his voice weakening as grayness crept into his skin. "Lock down Pier 4. Don't let Moretti reach the water."
"I can't leave you bleeding out, boss," Cole argued, holding a towel against the wound, his own hands stained crimson. "We need a surgeon!"
"The estate is surrounded! No doctor can get in!" Nathan snapped, cough racking his chest. "Give me the cauterizing tool. Do it now!"
"No!" I shouted, stepping between Cole and Nathan.
Both men looked at me in shock.
"You'll go into septic shock or bleed to death before your backup arrives," I said, my voice steadying with a sudden, fierce clarity. My hands stopped shaking. I remembered the years I had spent helping hospice nurses care for my mother during her final months. I had cleaned infected wounds, administered IVs, and sutured bedsore tissue when the visiting doctors were too late.
I opened the trauma kit on the shelf. "I need antiseptic, surgical tweezers, lidocaine, and suture thread. Mrs. Gable, boil water and get me clean gauze."
"Bella..." Nathan breathed, looking at me with glazed eyes. "You don't have to look at this."
"Shut up, Nathan," I said firmly, snapping latex gloves onto my hands. "You spent fifty thousand dollars to bury my mother. I am not letting you die on this table."
Nathan let out a low, breathless laugh, his head falling back against the metal. "God... you really are something."
The next twenty minutes were pure hell. Without proper surgical equipment, I poured antiseptic directly into the gaping wound. Nathan gripped the edges of the steel table so hard the metal buckled beneath his fingers, but he never screamed. He kept his eyes locked onto mine, drawing strength from my stare.
My fingers were steady as I guided the tweezers into the wound, feeling the cold clink of lead against steel.
"I've got it," I whispered.
With a slow, careful pull, I extracted the deformed slug and dropped it into a metal tray. It clattered loudly. I immediately applied pressure, washed the tract with antibiotic solution, and began stitching the torn muscle with rapid, precise sutures.
By the time I tied the final knot and taped the sterile pressure dressing over his shoulder, the heavy thuds of combat above had begun to quiet.
The bunker radio crackled to life.
"Boss! This is Alpha Team at the main gate! Moretti’s strike team has been eliminated or captured! Reinforcements from Drake Harbor have secured the perimeter! The estate is clean!"
Cole sagged against the concrete wall in relief.
May you like
Nathan slowly raised his uninjured left hand, catching my blood-stained glove. He pulled my hand to his lips, kissing my knuckles with reverent tenderness.
"They thought you were my weakness, Bella," he whispered, his eyes burning with an awe that shook me to my core. "They had no idea you were my spine."
